I loved Robin Williams. Most people did. When we lost him, we lost possibly the greatest comedy star of the latter half of the 20th century. You can even see it in this film. Unfortunately, that’s all you can see.
Popeye should have been a slam dunk. Robin Williams playing the title character against Shelley Duvall’s Olive Oyl was a match made in heaven. But the producers decided to have a comic book writer and illustrator write the screenplay. Nothing against comic book writers. I love comics, and know artists. But just because you can write a comic book doesn’t mean that automatically translates into being able to write a feature film.
Oh, and did I mention that they decided to make the film a musical? Outside of Willy Wonka and Fiddler on the Roof, I don’t know many musicals that became hits in the modern era. So what we ended up with was a busted script, that was also a musical, with a tedious plot which the music didn’t help, and Williams and Duvall trying to slog their way through a barely manageable film.
Williams was, of course, brilliant. I do not know of a film that he wasn’t brilliant in. Not saying that all the films were great, but Williams shined in just about anything he did. If I sound like a fanboy, it’s only because I am intentionally trying to overstate the importance of Robin Williams in modern comedy. And we needed someone with the gravitas of the Marx Brothers, and Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, and Bill Cosby. Not many would make the list. Williams did. Easily.
From the time he sprang into everyone’s attention playing Mork from Ork as a guest star on Happy Days (did you forget that Mork and Mindy was a Happy Days spinoff?), to the times he became larger than the story in films like Good Morning Vietnam and The Dead Poets Society, Williams never failed to deliver. Even in a stinker like Robert Altman’s Popeye couldn’t drag Williams down. The only two good things about Popeye are Williams and Duvall. Watch the film for them. Enjoy their exceptional work in a film that didn’t deserve them.
So what was wrong with Popeye? Many people have made analysis to the reasons for the failure. I was 17 when it came out, and watched it in the theater, mouth agape, at the absolutely abysmal film in front of me. I wasn’t there to watch a musical. I wasn’t there to see the town that looked like it had Dr. Seuss for an architect. I wasn’t there to watch a film that was called tedious, and boring. This was Popeye. I wanted to see spinach gulping and butt kicking! It happened exactly once, and lasted about 10 seconds.
Reception with the public and critics was so toxic that Robert Altman was reportedly unemployable afterward, and had to be self-exiled to Paris.
IMDB gives this unbelievable dog of a film a 5.3. It’s worse than that, but Williams and Duvall are much better than that. I think I’ll just leave it alone.